Role of external forcing in the time-varying trends of global-mean surface temperature under current and future climates

Abstract

The decadal-scale global-mean surface temperature (GMST) trend fluctuates between rapid-warming, slow-warming and cooling under the combined action of external forcing (EX) and internal variability. However, the principal contributors to the time-varying trends of GMST across decadal scales in current and future climates remain elusive. Here, by leveraging observations and initial-condition large ensembles, we unravel that historical GMST trend fluctuations are predominantly driven by EX on timescales exceeding ∼9 years within the current climate, with anthropogenic and volcanic aerosols being the primary drivers. However, in the warming climate, the significant contribution of EX on decadal scales is projected to decrease. This is primarily due to anthropogenic aerosol mitigation efforts and the absence of unpredictable volcanism. Despite the continuous increase in greenhouse gases, these factors are expected to delay the emergence of EX-dominance to ∼14-year timescale. Our results quantitatively underscore the pivotal role of the EX in modulating GMST trend fluctuations and its potential weakening at decadal scales in the warming climate, indicating that predicting near-term changes in GMST may become less certain in the future.